(TAN): The Goa government will soon present a tourism policy for the upcoming seasons after taking stakeholders into confidence, Chief Minister of the Indian state, Pramod Sawant, said earlier this week, as per reports.
Goa, situated in western India along the Arabian Sea, is a popular beach destination.
He reportedly acknowledged that tourist arrivals for the current seasons have witnessed a drop, while speaking at the launch of a travel magazine in Panaji. He said arrival figures will improve only if all stakeholders put joint effort, reports said.
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“We have to finalise tourist policy for coming seasons. We will consult all stakeholders, we will take their ideas… We will take all people onboard and finalise new policy soon which will help in coming seasons,” Sawant was quoted by Outlook India as saying.
According to reports, he added that tourism has become the key industry to generate revenues for the state after the mining industry was banned in 2018.
“Now we can say that for this tourist season, there is a slowdown in tourists. If all stakeholders come together and help, more and more tourists will come,” he was quoted by Republic as saying.
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Goa, which has reportedly been facing a slump in overseas tourist arrivals, is looking at China, a massive outbound travel market, for a boost. Earlier this month, President of Travel and Tourism Association of Goa, Savio Messias reportedly said international tourist arrivals in Goa had gone down by nearly 30 to 40%, owing to factors such as the shutting down of Thomas Cook.
“We are considering it a potential new market,” The Times of India quoted tourism secretary, J Ashok Kumar.
Messias said while China offered a good opportunity for Goa markets, promotions in China must be made through specially-designed websites.“Chinese usually go around in huge groups and when they come to India, their visit is restricted to places like Agra in North India or Kerala in the South. Promotions in China are different from the rest of the world. They don’t use Facebook, Google or Whatsapp. We will have to design websites in the Chinese language to reach to them,” Messias was quoted by Livemint as saying at a travel mart in Chengdu city, China.
